Here’s what people are saying about The Revlon Slough “Ray DiZazzo’s imaginative new and selected poems, The Revlon Slough, has managed to do the nearly impossible: to enter into the minds and experiences of the human and non-human world he imagines with both fresh imagery and insight. His poems about animals — from a humble mouse to a black widow spider munching on an unsuspecting mate — prove him to be a worthy successor to the work of Galway Kinnell. It is all a matter of perspective, the ability to get out of one’s own way in this complex and alienating world, and find a common humanity, a shared wisdom. A life observed with a keen and surprising vision.” — Laurel Ann Bogen Poet, writer, literary curator, author of Psychosis in the Produce Department: New and Selected Poems 1975-2015 (2016)
“Ray DiZazzo is a wordsmith whose poetry is inspired from a life-long journey of human experience. The Revlon Slough lays those experiences bare for his readers with a wide range of poems: strident, and moving, heartfelt and nostalgic, some loving and some cruel and irreverent. DiZazzo’s poems exist entirely to serve the reader: they are easily read and understood and they connect and take hold with the grip of powerful imagery.” — Ralph Philips Writer, scriptwriter, producer and director
‘In The Revlon Slough, Ray DiZazzo’s poetry reflects the influence of poets like James Dickey, Margaret Atwood and Robert Peters. Incorporating his unusual perceptions and vivid craftsmanship to bring them to life in the readers’ mind’s eye. His view of life and its many complexities is refreshing, sometimes inspiring, sometimes self-incriminating and often simply our unspoken truths, words we have often thought but never put down on paper, told through striking imagery. His is a book well worth reading.” — Ned Rodgers Corporate media writer, producer, director
“What Ray DiZazzo has written is a series of vivid, emotional experiences coming from the printed page into the readers’ hearts and souls . . . . He has managed to powerfully communicate the intimate thoughts and feelings that many, if not all of us, experience, but never find ways to express.” — Phillips Wylly Writer, producer, director
RAY DIZAZZO Introduction by Claire Millikin
NEW YORK www.2leafpress.org
P.O. Box 4378 Grand Central Station New York, New York 10163-4378 editor@2leafpress.org www.2leafpress.org 2LEAF PRESS is an imprint of the Intercultural Alliance of Artists & Scholars, Inc. (IAAS), a NY-based nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that promotes multicultural literature and literacy. www.theiaas.org Copyright Š 2018 Ray DiZazzo Book layout and design: Gabrielle David Poetry editor : Sean Dillon Library of Congress Control Number: 2017963110 ISBN-13: 978-1-940939-69-8 (Paperback) ISBN-13: 978-1-940939-82-7 (eBook) 10
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Published in the United States of America First Edition | First Printing
2LEAF PRESS print books are available for sale on most online retailers in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia. For more information, contact sales@2leafpress.org. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopied, recorded or otherwise without permission from the Intercultural Alliance of Artists & Scholars, Inc. (IAAS).
For Patti, Sunday, Sean and Robert Peters.
CONTENTS PREFACE Revlon and Slough? by Ray DiZazzo ......................... vii INTRODUCTION The Broken Line by Claire Millikin ............................... 1
MARVELOUS CREATURES c 7 To a Red Tail......................................................... 9 Tails ................................................................... 11 Mice .................................................................. 13 Pig .................................................................... 15 The Water Bulls .................................................. 16 Sloth .................................................................. 17 Kestrel ............................................................... 18 The Vulture’s Math ............................................. 20 Black Widow ...................................................... 21 Toad Night Haiku ................................................ 25 THE REVLON SLOUGH
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Winter Gulls At Dusk ........................................... 26 Wildebeest ......................................................... 27 Appaloosa .......................................................... 28 The Vultures’ Greeting ........................................ 29 Poachers ........................................................... 30 Evening Gulls ..................................................... 31
DAMAGED c 33 Cisco, Me and a Copper Angel ........................... 35 Farrell ................................................................. 37 Before the Wake ................................................. 38 Dwarf ................................................................. 39 Cell 18 ............................................................... 40 Justice ............................................................... 41 Memories ........................................................... 42 Wino .................................................................. 43 The Suicidals ...................................................... 44 Porn .................................................................. 45 The Stew Cutter ................................................. 46 A Full Page Ad.................................................... 47 The Loft ............................................................. 48 Remember ......................................................... 49
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A Crazy Fuck ...................................................... 50 An Alcoholic’s Blessing ...................................... 51 Bi-Partisan Coverage ......................................... 52 Bullets................................................................ 53 Love Song For a Fisherman’s Daughter ............... 54 24 by 24 ............................................................ 55
GALLERY c 59 My Son in a Canoe on the Colorado River ........... 61 The Revlon Slough ............................................. 63 Huron ................................................................ 64 Sniper .............................................................. 66 December 19th ................................................. 67 Sea Storm .......................................................... 68 On The Speed Of Sight ....................................... 69 Lightning On The Front Nine ............................... 70 Copper ............................................................. 71 Summer Storms ................................................. 72 Voyager 1 ........................................................... 73 Flood ................................................................. 75 Coma ................................................................. 77 Death ................................................................. 79
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An End of Time................................................... 85 February Haiku From A Kitchen Window ............. 86 Winter Noon Without You .................................... 87 A Pick-Up Ride ................................................... 88 Today ................................................................ 89 The Wreck .......................................................... 90 The Ash Cloud ................................................... 91 Midnight Mountain Haiku .................................... 93 Eggs .................................................................. 94 Westminster Park at Evening ............................... 96 The Smell of Feathers Boiling .............................. 97 A Trailer Park In Tornado Alley ............................. 98 Snow on Bishop Fields ....................................... 99 In The High Sierra ............................................ 100 Driving Home At Sunset .................................... 101
COMING ATTRACTIONS c 105 Gift— 2032 ....................................................... 107 Birth — 2100..................................................... 108 Back on the Ranch — 2118 ............................... 109 Moonfield — 2127 ............................................. 111
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DREAM RUBBLE c 113 Two Dolls ......................................................... 115 A Massachusetts Barn At Sunset ...................... 117 Mare And Foal .................................................. 118 Midnight Earth Chant ........................................ 119 Edible Abstract ................................................. 120 A Nightmare in the Dead of Winter .................... 121
ANGELS c 123 Northern Lights ................................................ 125 Angels ............................................................ 126 A Startled Angel ............................................... 127 Guardian Angels ............................................... 128
EPILOGUE c 131 Just ................................................................. 133 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .......................................... 135 ABOUT THE POET ................................................ 139 OTHER BOOKS BY 2LEAF PRESS ......................... 143
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PREFACE
REVLON AND SLOUGH?
I
’VE BEEN ASKED how I came up with The Revlon Slough as a title for a book of poems. There’s an interesting story behind it. On a Sunday afternoon drive through the farmlands of Camarillo, California, a road-side sign briefly caught my eye. Something about it seemed odd, I made a U-turn and drove back for a second look. Sure enough, on that official city notification sign scrawled with graffiti and stained with mud, I saw what I thought at the time was a disturbingly unlikely combination of words: “The Revlon Slough” “Revlon” and “Slough?” Two words I would never have expected to see side-by-side. A juxtaposition of beauty and ugliness; perfume and stench; lipstick and mud. Who in the world would name a slough “Revlon”? I went on with my drive that day, but I couldn’t get those two words out of my mind. It took a few weeks of thinking and scratching out notes, not only about the poem I’d begun to write, but also why the sign had struck me so intensely. After all, they were only
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a few words that named an obscure, muddy rut winding through several miles of Southern California farmland. Eventually, I realized that my fascination with those two words and my motivation to expand them into a poem was not because they juxtaposed opposite ideas, but for two different reasons. First, because I am a “word person.” Words matter to me — how they are written, placed together on a page (albeit in this case a sign) viewed, heard and interpreted by a reader. And in this case, these two words just didn’t seem right when placed together. Second, because rather than representing two separate ideas — beauty and ugliness — I realized the words could just as easily represent a single idea viewed from two opposing perspectives: Mud and silt may be considered ugly by some, but to others they are just as beautiful as pouty red lips and lovely lashes. Thus: Beauty cannot be defined by one set of eyes or one opinion. Beauty encompasses literally everything, and “everything” includes what some consider ugly. So I had my answer. And after giving it more thought I realized that, depending on the readers’ perspective, many of the poems in this collection can suggest both ugliness and beauty, which made it a perfect title for the book as well. That should have been the end of the story, but I drove past that same sign a few weeks later and got a surprise. When I’d first seen it, the words had been partially obscured with graffiti and mud streaks. As it turns out, the name was not “Revlon” but instead, “Revolon!” I had missed the initial “o” and spent weeks working on a poem and book title based on a mistaken identity! That prompted a series of Internet searches, phone calls and emails, which eventually led me to the Camarillo Library and a talented young researcher who discovered the origin of the name. viii
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“The Revolon Slough” had been named after a French woman and her two sons who many years earlier had lived in and farmed the area. But this raised yet another question: was my original premise for the poem still valid? Was the title of the book? After giving it more thought, I decided that the essence of this work had sprung from a unique and revealing experience, and it certainly fit the definition of beauty and ugliness, so I would leave the title (with this note of correction) as I had first seen it. Though some of these poems were written in my early years and published in various venues, many are recent and unpublished prior to this volume. Some are dark and abrasive, while others are more subtle and at times humorous. Some are morally safe and others push the boundaries of what many will consider acceptable. I have no explanation, justification, or reason for any of this work, except to say that when it comes to poetry, I have little desire to write about myself when there are so many other more interesting and relevant subjects, but whatever the ideas my primary aim has always been to explore the art of creating vivid imagery with words — writing that allows readers to experience ideas, instead of simply reading them on the page or hearing them read aloud. I have divided this book into seven sections. “Marvelous Creatures” is a celebration of animals, birds, and other living things that have always fascinated me. I felt their stories should be told first because their place in nature and on my list of ideas to explore, ranks very high. “Damaged” explores the personalities and experiences of the hurt and broken among us and the worlds they (and we) inhabit. “Gallery” is a series of poems that describe individuals, places, and happenings that surround us and continually move in and out of our lives. In “Coming Attractions,” I have included four futuristic poems from my first book, Clovin’s Head, written
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forty years ago. Though they represent some of my earliest work, I feel they still remain worthy. “Dream Rubble” recounts a number of bizarre, fragmented dream experiences. And for reasons I cannot explain, in the “Angels” section I have begun trying to reshape the image of angels, into something like tiny, ethereal songbirds or mysterious, magical little pups. Go figure! And finally “Epilogue” a single poem, perhaps to sentimental, dedicated to the woman who has loved and supported me for so many years. With that, let me close by saying that although I hope you find these poems are engaging, provocative and meaningful, my concern is not so much whether you approve of, understand, or even like them. I am fulfilled if you simply experience them. c — Ray DiZazzo February, 2018
INTRODUCTION
THE BROKEN LINE
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AY DIZAZZO KNOWS the broken line — the starkest poetic tool. It’s an honest business, making a life’s work through song honed by fracture. Wry and sharp and true, his language cuts, exposing the force of what’s real, the intimacy of what holds us listening. The poems of The Revlon Slough speak and are a lifetime. New and selected, as the subtitle says, they span decades (his first book appeared in 1976), and while their tone and topics are as various and conflicted as the American experience itself — the timeframe of his poems reaches from Nixon to Trump — the poems riff off the power of language to transform and transcend a markedly imperfect world. They use language as a way to gather the fallen pieces. Take these words from “The Stew Cutter”: “Only thing I know,” he says “besides a cleaver and a lean stew is how to play guitar.” (p. 46) The stew cutter manages his tool, and his music, with only a few fingers left on his hands (“whitish nubs and a muscled thumb”). Irony and gallows humor make the poetics of pathos so striking in these lines (it could be the blues — almost a refrain). The stew cutter plays things as they are. And that’s DiZazzo’s way in this col-
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lection — the beauty of neither inflection nor innuendo, but more a syncopated and precise poetics of accident and composure, as American as jazz. The Revlon Slough (the title itself is based on a misprision — “Revolon Slough” is a California landscape feature) opens with a trickily engaging bestiary. However, these animal poems are no petting zoo, they often bite. Even so, one also finds pools of lyric stillness in the fine observation of poems like “Toad Night Haiku”: An avocado sized southern bull, swelling in the hum of insects (p. 25) Rather more starkly, the birds and beasts and bugs in DiZazzo’s “Marvelous Creatures” section play the same tune as his stew cutter. In the first poem of the book, the poet learns from a hunting red tail hawk how “to / a perfect / down-line,” ending in a cleaver-quick act of “evisceration” (“To a Red Tail,” p. 9 ). This “perfect down-line” is an apt metaphor for DiZazzo’s muse and gift. To me, the heart of The Revlon Slough is the section named “Damaged.” In fact, as we saw in “To a Red Tail,” many of DiZazzo’s lyrics are songs that risk damages. It’s a fallen, imperfect world, from Nixon to Trump, with often more ugliness than grace, whether it’s nature’s raw chance or the bloody errors of our own blind passions. The characters who are damaged, who populate the poems of “Damaged,” do not ask for forgiveness, exculpation, or exemption. They live their fates, and DiZazzo’s poems faithfully adhere to the contours of those harmed places. These poems show scars and have reasons to mourn. Still, DiZazzo’s lyricism, perfecting the down-line, is ultimately transformational and transcendent. Like the stew cutter’s cleaver and the talon of a hawk, DiZazzo’s poetic 2
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tools are sharp, primal as shards of obsidian glass — an assemblage of honest artifacts that cut true. This transumption in an ordinary hand, throughout, achieves a poetry of real accidentals — here is what takes place, says poem after poem — a blessing and never a complaint. Consider the movement in these lines from the poem “My Son in a Canoe on the Colorado River”: an oar striking the water “pull[s] the river’s skin until / it tears / shatters / into / water flies and diamonds,” (p. 61). The metaphor of damage turns into a snapshot of Realist and Romantic balance — if DiZazzo’s vision is more Diane Arbus than Ansel Adams, he yet reflects the Californian photographer’s clarity of sight, a love of the natural world, and a willingness to hone the line until it reflects the visible. This is not to say that DiZazzo’s poems can’t be tender or joyous or playful or meditative — they’re all that and more. He can be prophetic and mystical, as in the “Coming Attractions” poems (from his early book Clovin’s Head) and in the otherworldly depictions of mundane visitations transformed into allegory (the poems in the section “Angels”). He can also sound the homespun and downright domestic note, as he takes account of what’s close at hand, in poems conveying the wisdom such attention earns (the poem “Edible Abstract,” for instance). Throughout The Revlon Slough, DiZazzo’s poetic instincts consistently keep paring away at the divisions between the beautiful and the ugly, the Romantic and the Realistic, his words ever edgewise, perfecting that down-line. And when he cuts, he puts neither a bandage nor a bow on it. His poems keep you seeing and feeling. His range is astonishing. From the hiemal chill of “Winter Gulls at Dusk” to the chilly, but in a very different way, “The Suicidals,” the poet writes the edges of life, knowing always that these edges become the center, become memory, because here are the details of
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painful real. I admire the sparseness, the unwillingness to adorn, of these poems that insist on words as tools for seeing, knowing, witnessing. Ray DiZazzo has written that he learned from many poets in his lifetime of writing, from Sylvia Plath to Rod Mckuen, Pablo Neruda to Charles Bukowski, and he lists Robert Peters and James Dickey as an early influence, whose primal juxtapositions between nature and interloper one might catch here and there in the way DiZazzo directs the startling force of his words. Overall, a reader hears in The Revlon Slough a poetic voice coming to terms with the rough and prickly side of language, aptly observing a world where things fall apart. Seldom confessional, DiZazzo writes things as they are, beautiful and damaged. Listening to him make us a bit more whole — because he never forgets it’s the cut in the fabric that lets in light. c — Claire Millikin, March 17, 2018 Charlottesville, Virginia
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M A R V E L O U S C R E A T U R E S
TO A RED TAIL Though bound to earth by size and genus I have dreamed your kind of freedom: belly down, hung and bouncing on the Santa Anas. I have scanned the furrows for a pinkish toe, a flick of ear a single, sun-caught eye sparking in the farmland. And yes, I’ve felt your gifts: The lift and roll
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to a perfect down-line muscled talons tightening in fur my beak a facial needle hooked, inserted, tearing out a warm evisceration.
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TAILS For the lynx, a bob a wooly stub above the anus shaking off the snow on a winter slope. Studs and mares in southern dust corrals stand and fly their hairy flags dropping dung swatting off the clouds of gnats and flies. And dogs? Thickened whips tucking under hairless bellies coiling over, curling sideways standing, wagging out a figure-eight of love. For us nothing more than a coccyx finger hook-like, pointing down in a pelvic X-ray.
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But think about the crocodiles, waving easily through silt and lilies scorpions – the arc-sting coiled overhead monkeys chattering bands traveling prehensile through the canopies of broken shade and down along the evolutionary line “pollywogs” in reproductive cream countless tiny trillions wriggling upstream in search of eggs.
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MICE Families. Males, females, pups. They come in single file walking tight-rope on the Romex tiny claws tapping out the intermittent zaps of TV static. Here for cheese and retribution they are fucking in the attics mounting anything with whiskers and a breakneck heartbeat squirting out the pups in bloody legions. They’ve beaten all the traps left their pellets in the pantry corners nested in the garden gloves and rags, peeking out
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with eyes as bright as poppy seeds and strings of cheddar souring in teeth the size of porcelain needles.
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PIG I am the boar meaty giant, prancing in a blaze of dust and light my testicles in tempo slapping snout upturned, webs of drool flung from the pinkish folds of my mouth. Up from the beds of summer mud, I am strutting caked, magnificent among my sows.
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THE WATER BULLS The water bulls are wrong. As round with love as they may be as bloated tight with the tenderness of weight and dreams their sun has set for good. Huddled in the reeds their crescent horns ringing with the frequencies of night they never see, never understand that stars give off so little warmth, lunar light is icy and the calves are shivering beside them.
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SLOTH (After paying two dollars to pose for a picture with an old man cuddling his pet sloth in Costa Rica.)
First a paradox: The yellowed saber claws and oddly comical snout and face. Then the eyes: Almond glass in milk the slow, crystal blink and gaze almost comatose with awe as if she can’t believe the saturated hues sunlit depths and marvelous shapes her sight has found. Silver daughter of a distant forest she is dozing, clutching, dreaming of a light above the canopies.
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KESTREL The secret is to open, lean unhook your feet from creosote and lift away from power poles and copper feeding kitchens to the south. The secret is an altitude of open rings thermals winding off the graveled tracks lifting you in head-locked focus to a moment when the secret is to roll
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fall away on a slice of wing folding for acceleration down a calibrated arc to something warm something living something twitching in its unsuspecting whiskers at the end.
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THE VULTURE’S MATH How slow a movement is the act of rotting? How fast the circular descent from a thousand feet? How many steps to walk the side of a zebra’s neck from cheek to shoulder?
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BLACK WIDOW 1.
I am queen keeper of the shadowed place. Threading anything of permanence to molded earth I make my rooms. 2.
For you I swell with a paralytic milk. I, the polished piece of shadow, belly-flagged and hung among the parts of motors left too long. 3.
Often in this night I dream you’ve come
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all my eyes upon your flight the glittering circles sunlight into shadow into silk. 4.
Fangs to gut we touch and lock. Your scales are brittle warm with light. My face is pulsing sending in the necessary dose to stop your muscles freeze you mind calm you for the work of your cocoon.
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5.
I embrace wind you like a beating jewel. A wing, one leg still moving pressing out. My legs are tireless. They pull, guide, bind. The gland is like an anus swelling to release its thread. 6.
The Moon ascending light my house
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my young deposited like pearls. You sleep enclosed in a gossamer ball unaware they have begun at last to stir.
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TOAD NIGHT HAIKU An avocado sized southern bull, swelling in the hum of insects
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WINTER GULLS AT DUSK Knowing nothing of the principles of lift or why a level sun goes red one by one they open rise and hang above the cliffs held aloft on blusters off a gray Pacific January swirls, curling up the wisps of sand, wailing through the slatted fences rolling inland on the waves of yellow shore grass.
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WILDEBEEST It is on TV, the female down in grass giving birth calf ’s legs, two like wet black sticks protruding from the lump beneath her tail. Also down the lioness is closing. She has calculated this in terms of energy conserved hunger, and the appetites of male and cubs. I am lounging in the den drinking beer feeling, as the kill ensues at peace.
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APPALOOSA Arc of sunlight on the spotted rump skittish, rocking in a two-horse trailer stopped (the Chevy honking) blocking traffic at the Wynn Street on-ramp.
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THE VULTURES’ GREETING Poor Jack slivered bones in a sandy pelt opened by an owl at the foot of an old saguaro. We are over you in circles. Can you see us though your skull-hole full of flies? We, the feathered pilots of the canyons and arroyos wheeling dropping hopping in for lunch you silly rabbit.
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POACHERS (Poem for a “No Hunting” sign in Barstow, California.)
Though most are satisfied to flick a cigarette or sling a bottle some cannot resist the paintless metal dents created by a load of buckshot Others, liking holes and gashes use an axe or 30-30. There are, too, the more “courageous” who on isolated stretches take the time to hang the rabbits on display.
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EVENING GULLS I my kind are falling through a level sun wheeling dropping turning one
by
one
to
silhouettes
along
a dune.
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E P I L O G U E
JUST (For Patti, with love, Huntington Beach, 1971)
Just a flash a slice of light a sword or blade to carve away the clouds plink the stars and cut you off a cold white curl of moon. Just a glow
a sunrise
orange skies
pinned to the milky ceilings of your eyes. Just a breath a need. Just you.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Some of these poems have appeared in the following publications “The Stew Cutter,” Poetry Now “Dwarf,” The Berkeley Poetry Review, Poetic Trenches “Flood,” Westways “Moonfield,” Invisible City “Farrell,” Valley Magazine “Westminster Park at Evening,” Mother’s Manual “On the Speed of Sight,” Burning with a Vision (anthology), The Alchemy of the Stars (anthology) “Cisco, Me and a Copper Angel,” California Quarterly “The Water Bulls,” SF Poetry Review “Two Dolls,” Road Apple Review “Cell 18,” Midatlantic Review “Back on the Ranch,” The Magazine of Speculative Poetry “Guardian Angeles,” The Magazine of Speculative Poetry “Moonrunner,” Prelude to Fantasy “Justice,” Wilmore City “December 19th,” Voices International “Voyager 1,” The American Aesthetic “Sloth,” Rose Red Review
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“Sniper,” Anthology Americana, Mason J. Press “Winter Gulls at Dusk,” Anthology Americana, Mason J. Press “The Revlon Slough,” Anthology Americana, Mason J. Press “Voyager,” Anthology Americana, Mason J. Press “Porn,” Poetic Trenches “Tails,” Dime Show Review Some of these poems have also appeared in three poetry collections: Clovin’s Head (Red Hill Press, 1976) Songs for a Summer Fly (Kenmore Press, 1978) The Water Bulls (Granite-Collen, 2011)
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ABOUT THE POET
R
AY DIZAZZO is an author, filmmaker, and poet. He has appeared on radio and television, taught communication skills to corporate managers in the U.S. and abroad; and has written, produced and directed media and training programs for Fortune 500 clients. DiZazzo has taught intensive producing and directing workshops at the International Film and Television Workshops in Rockport, Maine, California State University, Northridge, and Popular Communications Company in London, England. He delivered a keynote address to employees of the New York State Ed-
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ucation Department, and he has spoken to audiences in London, Los Angeles and other U.S. cities. DiZazzo has written a number of communication books, including The Corporate Media Toolkit: Advanced Techniques for Producers, Writers and Directors (Focal Press, 2017), The Clarity Factor: Four Secrets of True Understanding (Granite-Collen Communications, 2016), which has been translated into six languages, and Communicate! Confidence Skills for English Learners (2016). His four-book, Corporate Media Production series has been used in colleges and universities internationally, for over a decade. DiZazzo’s has also written several screenplays, one of which was produced and another, currently in development. His work has garnered numerous awards, including the first Los Angeles area Emmy in the Educational category. DiZazzo’s poetry, criticism, essays and fiction have appeared in numerous commercial and literary magazines, newspapers and books, including The Berkeley Poetry Review, Westways, Mother’s Manual, The Easter River Review, Valley Magazine, and The Mid-Atlantic Review. His work has been anthologized in The Alchemy of Stars, Burning With A Vision, and Contemporary Literary Criticism. In addition, he has published three poetry collections, The Water Bulls (Granite-Collen, 2009), Songs for a Summer Fly (Kenmore Press, 1978), and Clovin’s Head (Red Hill Press, 1976).DiZazzo is the recipient of the Percival Roberts Book Award, the Rhysling Award, and is a Pushcart Prize nominee. Having recently retired, he lives in California with his wife of forty-seven years, and spends as much time as possible with his children and grandchildren. c
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OTHER BOOKS BY 2LEAF PRESS 2Leaf Press challenges the status quo by publishing alternative fiction, non-fiction, poetry and bilingual works by activists, academics, poets and authors dedicated to diversity and social justice with scholarship that is accessible to the general public. 2Leaf Press produces high quality and beautifully produced hardcover, paperback and ebook formats through our series: 2LP Translations, 2LP Classics, Nuyorican World Series, 2LP Explorations in Diversity and 2LP Current Affairs, Culture & Politics. Below is a selection of 2Leaf Press’ published titles. NONFICTION Designs of Blackness, Mappings in the Literature and Culture of African Americans A. Robert Lee 20TH ANNIVERSARY EXPANDED EDITION
Substance of Fire: Gender and Race in the College Classroom by Claire Millikin Foreword by R. Joseph Rodríguez, Afterword by Richard Delgado Contributed material by Riley Blanks, Blake Calhoun and Rox Trujillo 2LP EXPLORATIONS IN DIVERSITY
THE BOOK: Understanding Publishing and the New Technology, A Historical Overview with a Publisher’s Perspective by Gabrielle David No Vacancy; Homeless Women in Paradise by Michael Reid
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LITERARY CRITICISM Designs of Blackness, Mappings in the Literature and Culture of African Americans by A. Robert Lee Monsters: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Mathilda by Mary Shelley, edited by Claire Millikin Raymond 2LP CLASSICS
LITERARY NONFICTION Our Nuyorican Thing, The Birth of a Self-Made Identity by Samuel Carrion Diaz, with an Introduction by Urayoán Noel Bilingual: English/Spanish NUYORICAN WORLD SERIES
ANTHOLOGIES Black Lives Have Always Mattered A Collection of Essays, Poems, and Personal Narratives Edited by Abiodun Oyewole 2LP EXPLORATIONS IN DIVERSITY
The Beiging of America: Personal Narratives about Being Mixed Race in the 21st Century Edited by Cathy J. Schlund-Vials, Sean Frederick Forbes and Tara Betts with a an Afterword by Heidi Durrow 2LP EXPLORATIONS IN DIVERSITY
What Does it Mean to be White in America? Breaking the White Code of Silence, A Collection of Personal Narratives Edited by Gabrielle David and Sean Frederick Forbes Introduction by Debby Irving and Afterword by Tara Betts 2LP EXPLORATIONS IN DIVERSITY
COLLECTIONS: SHORT STORIES, ESSAYS The Beauty of Being, A Collection of Fables, Short Stories & Essays by Abiodun Oyewole WHEREABOUTS: Stepping Out of Place, An Outside in Literary & Travel Magazine Anthology Edited by Brandi Dawn Henderson
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RAY DIZAZZO
PLAYS Rivers of Women, The Play by Shirley Bradley LeFlore, with photographs by Michael J. Bracey AUTOBIOGRAPHIES/MEMOIRS/BIOGRAPHIES Strength of Soul by Naomi Raquel Enright Dream of the Water Children: Memory and Mourning in the Black Pacific by Fredrick D. Kakinami Cloyd Foreword by Velina Hasu Houston, Introduction by Gerald Horne Edited by Karen Chau Trailblazers, Black Women Who Helped Make America Great American Firsts/American Icons by Gabrielle David Adventures in Black and White by Philippa Schuyler Edited and with a critical introduction by Tara Betts 2LP CLASSICS
The Fourth Moment: Journeys from the Known to the Unknown, A Memoir by Carole J. Garrison, Introduction by Sarah Willis POETRY PAPOLíTICO, Poems of a Political Persuasion by Jesús Papoleto Meléndez, with an Introduction by Joel Kovel and DeeDee Halleck Critics of Mystery Marvel, Collected Poems by Youssef Alaoui, with an Introduction by Laila Halaby shrimp by jason vasser-elong, with an Introduction by Michael Castro The Revlon Slough, New and Selected Poems by Ray DiZazzo, with an Introduction by Claire Millikin Written Eye: Visuals/Verse by A. Robert Lee
THE REVLON SLOUGH
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A Country Without Borders: Poems and Stories of Kashmir by Lalita Pandit Hogan, with an Introduction by Frederick Luis Aldama Branches of the Tree of Life The Collected Poems of Abiodun Oyewole 1969-2013 by Abiodun Oyewole, edited by Gabrielle David with an Introduction by Betty J. Dopson Birds on the Kiswar Tree by Odi Gonzales, Translated by Lynn Levin Bilingual: English/Spanish 2LP TRANSLATIONS
Incessant Beauty, A Bilingual Anthology by Ana Rossetti, Edited and Translated by Carmela Ferradáns Bilingual: English/Spanish 2LP TRANSLATIONS
Hey Yo! Yo Soy!, 40 Years of Nuyorican Street Poetry, The Collected Works of Jesús Papoleto Meléndez Bilingual: English/Spanish NUYORICAN WORLD SERIES
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